Delinquent tax payers
I just received a RFQ for bids from companies that will collect back taxes. I'm very surprised at the amount of delinquent tax payers. I do not know how much money we are talking about, but surmise it could be a million or two. The Town has approximately 3,200 bills outstanding, dating back to 1995. My question is how did it come to this? Who is in charge of collecting the taxes now, that can't seem to get what the Town is owed. I would assume, that any company hired would take a percentage off the top, leaving Framingham with less.
City or Town.. makes no difference in collecting taxes owed in my opinion.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:38 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
The town Treasurer is responsible for collecting these taxes, and that is Carolyn Lyons. This is not a new problem, so maybe we should be looking for a new collector. Why are we going out to bid to pay someone else to do a job that we are already paying a town employee to do? If she can not do her job, then let's replace her with someone who can. I am in no way saying we should replace her, but if her job description does include collecting delinquent taxes, then I wonder why she is not doing that?
On March 3, 2015 an article in the MetroWest said that there was $643,406 on upaid taxes on 130 properties in Framingham for 2014. I would be interested in knowing how many of those were paid, and did we use an outside service to collect those payments.
And I agree with what you said, the collection service I am sure is either paid a flat fee of a percentage of what they collect. I think we have a right to know how much that is, as well as know what the current Treasurers salary is. Does TM have a right to weigh in on this process since it involves spending tax payors money? With so many expenses coming up, including building a new school, we need to make sure we are getting in every dime that is owed to the town.
Dating back to 1995? Someone has been asleep at the wheel. That is 22 years of letting someone slide. Who oks doing that? Why have we not taken these properties?
How much is this going to cost us? And why spend money trying to collect on bills that you have let slide for the last 20 years? These people could be dead
Today I found out.. (inquiring why my 15 year old Mustang is taxed higher than my 2013 Dodge Mini Van) there are 50,000 cars in Framingham. The total amount of excise tax is around 7 Million we collect. The owners who don't pay that tax are referred to the RMV, so when they go to get their license renewed or their registration, they must pay the tax plus penalty. Property tax is another story. There's no mechanism to get them to pay until someone at the tax office starts the procedure for collecting. I get it that some who have serious health issues, loss of employment, or other hardships that prevent them from paying the property tax, but it does seem like we are letting to many go for to long.
Thanks for that figure Annon.. I didn't know it was so high back then.
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